If you're building a horror game, adding a roblox flashlight script battery system is one of the best ways to ramp up the tension for your players. There's something specifically terrifying about wandering through a dark hallway and hearing that clicking sound when your light starts to fail. If the flashlight stays on forever, the player feels too safe. We don't want them to feel safe; we want them checking their inventory every five seconds to see if they have enough juice to make it to the next room.
In this article, I'm going to walk you through how to set this up from scratch. We'll cover the basic tool setup, the scripting logic that makes the battery drain, and how to create a simple UI so the player actually knows how much power they have left. It's not as complicated as it sounds, even if you're relatively new to Luau.
Setting Up the Flashlight Tool
Before we even touch the code, we need the actual flashlight. In your Roblox Studio Explorer, go to the StarterPack and insert a new Tool. Let's name it "Flashlight." Inside that Tool, you're going to need a Part that acts as the physical object the player holds. Name this part Handle. If you have a fancy 3D model, that's great, just make sure the main part is named Handle so the character grips it correctly.
Now, inside that Handle, you need to add a SpotLight. This is what's going to provide the actual light. You can play around with the brightness and the angle in the Properties window. Personally, I like a brightness of around 2 and an angle of about 60 to give it that focused beam look. Also, make sure the Enabled property of the SpotLight is set to false by default. We want the player to turn it on themselves.
The Core Logic: The Battery Script
Alright, let's get into the meat of it. We're going to use a LocalScript inside the Flashlight tool. We're using a LocalScript because it handles player input (like clicking) and UI updates much more smoothly than a server script would.
To start, we need to define some variables. You'll want a variable for the battery life (let's start it at 100), a variable for the drain rate, and a boolean to track if the light is currently on or off. It might look something like this:
batteryLife = 100isFlashlightOn = falsedrainRate = 0.5(This means it loses 0.5% every tick)
We need a way to toggle the light. We can use the Activated event of the Tool. When the player clicks while holding the flashlight, we'll flip that isFlashlightOn boolean. If it was false, it becomes true, and we turn the SpotLight's Enabled property to true. Simple enough, right?
But here's the trick: we need a loop that runs in the background. This loop checks if isFlashlightOn is true. If it is, it subtracts from our batteryLife. Once that battery hits zero, we force the light to turn off and stay off until they find a refill.
Making the UI Look Good
There is nothing more frustrating for a player than a flashlight that just dies with no warning. We need to give them a visual indicator. You can do this by going to StarterGui and adding a ScreenGui. Inside that, add a Frame to act as the background of your battery bar, and another Frame inside that one to be the actual progress bar.
In your script, every time the battery drains, you should update the size of that inner frame. If the battery is at 50%, the frame's width should be 50% of the background frame.
Pro tip: Don't just snap the size to the new value. Use TweenService to make the bar slide down smoothly. It looks way more professional and less "robotic." Plus, you can change the color of the bar as it gets lower. Maybe it's green at 100%, yellow at 50%, and turns a flashing red when it's under 10%. That visual feedback tells the player "Hey, start panicking now."
Adding Battery Pickups
What's a roblox flashlight script battery system without a way to recharge? You'll want to create a small Part in your workspace—maybe a little cylinder that looks like a AA battery—and put a script in it.
This part needs to use a Touched event. When a player walks over it, the script should check if they have the flashlight in their inventory or equipped. If they do, you add a certain amount back to the batteryLife variable and then Destroy() the battery part so they can't just stand on it and have infinite light.
One thing to keep in mind here: since the battery variable is inside a LocalScript, the server doesn't actually know how much battery the player has. If you're making a serious, competitive game, you might want to move the battery math to a ServerScript and use RemoteEvents to tell the client when to update the UI. But for a simple horror game or a solo project, keeping it in the LocalScript is usually fine and much easier to manage.
Adding That Horror Atmosphere
To really make your roblox flashlight script battery system feel high-quality, you should add some "flair." One of my favorite things to add is a flicker effect. When the battery gets below 15%, you can use a bit of random math to make the light turn off and on rapidly for a split second.
It's pretty easy to code. Inside your main loop, if batteryLife is low, you can say: if math.random() > 0.9 then SpotLight.Enabled = false; task.wait(0.1); SpotLight.Enabled = true. This creates an unpredictable flickering that makes the player feel like the light is genuinely about to give up on them.
Also, don't forget sound effects! A nice "click" sound when turning it on and off goes a long way. You can just find a free sound in the Toolbox, put it in the Handle, and use Sound:Play() whenever the flashlight is toggled. It's those little details that separate a "meh" game from one that people actually remember.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Sometimes, your script might not work the first time. It happens to everyone. The most common mistake is usually with the Handle. If your flashlight falls through the floor or doesn't appear in the player's hand, check if it's anchored. It shouldn't be anchored! Another common issue is the light not draining. Double-check your loop. If you're using a while loop, make sure you have a task.wait() in there, or you'll crash your game.
Another thing is the UI not showing up. Make sure the IgnoreGuiInset property on your ScreenGui is checked if you want it to align perfectly with the edges of the screen, and ensure the ZIndex of your progress bar is higher than the background frame, otherwise, it'll be hidden behind it.
Wrapping it Up
Building a roblox flashlight script battery system is a fantastic project because it touches on so many different parts of game dev: tools, UI, scripting logic, and even game design balance. You have to decide how fast the battery should drain. Too fast, and the player gets annoyed. Too slow, and there's no challenge. Finding that "sweet spot" is what makes a game fun.
Honestly, the best way to learn is to just start typing. Don't worry about making the code perfect on the first try. Get the light to turn on and off first. Once that works, try to make it drain. Once that works, add the bar. Step by step is the way to go.
If you get stuck, the Roblox Developer Hub and various forums are full of people who have struggled with the exact same thing. But hopefully, this gives you a solid foundation to build something cool. Now go out there and make something that scares people!